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OUR CIVIL WAR: ITS CAUSES AND ITS ISSUES 



DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED IN THK 



BAPTIST CHURCH, BROOKLINE^ 

'^ ON THE 



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d OCCASION OF THE NATIONAL ..THANKSGIVING, 

' 1 ■• ^•;--.> 



AXJG-XJST 6, 1863. 



By JOHN N. MURDOCK, I). D. 



B O S TO N: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS. + SPRING lAXE. 

18 6 3. 



OUR CIVIL WAR: ITS CAUSES AND ITS ISSUES, 



DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED IN THE 



BAPTIST CHUECII, BEOOKLINE. 



OCCASION OE THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING, 



A.TJGHJST 6, 1863 



By JOHN N. MURDOCK, D. D. 



BOSTON: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 4 SPRING LANE. 

18 63. 



E45% 



3 



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CORRESPONDENCE 



Bkookline, August 12th, 1863. 
Rev. J. N. MuRDOCK, D. D. : Dear Six*, — The undersigned having heard with 
great satisfaction the very able Discourse delivered by you in Brookline, August 
6, 1863, on the occasion of the National Thanksgiving, desire of you a copy of the 
same for publication, believing as they do that the views therein expressed, if 
more widely diffused, would be of great service to the cause of the country. 
With assurances of high regard, 

"We subscribe ourselves, very truly, 
Your friends, 

Geo. F. Homer. R. S. Davis. 

Edw'd C. Wilson. D. H. Rogers. 

Moses Withington. E. Littell,. 

C. F. Huntington. James Edmond. 

Henry Wenzell. A. W. Benton. 

Rich'd L. Saville. Samuel Sutton. 

Wm. T. Eustis. Geo. S. Gushing. 

William Lincoln. Royal Woodward. 



Boston, August 18, 1863. 

Gentlemen, — Your very kind note requesting for publication a copy of my 
Discourse delivered in Brookline, on the 6th inst., has been placed in my hands. 

In spite of the diffidence which I really entertain in reference to the merits of the 
Discourse, I am constrained, by the opinion which you express, that its publication 
Avould be of great service to the cause of the country, to commit it to the press ; 
holding as I do that no citizen is at liberty, in such a time as this, to withhold 
any thing which may in any way subserve so great an interest. 

With sentiments of the highest regard I have the honor to be, gentlemen, 
Your obedient servant, 



J. N. MURDOCK. 



Messrs. George F. Homer, R. S. Davis, and others. 



y^(7 



DISCOURSE. 



Psalms cxxix. 1, 2. 

MANY A TIME HAVE THEY AFFLICTED ME PROM MY YOUTH, MAY ISRAEL 
NOW SAY: MANY A TIME HAVE THEY AFFLICTED ME FROM MY YOUTH; 
YET THEY HAVE NOT PREVAILED AGAINST ME. 

The Psalmist, personating the Jewish Nation, declares 
in these words that Israel had been assailed from the 
earliest day, by those who afflicted and sought his ruin. 
His enemies had ploughed long furrows in his back, but 
the Lord in his righteousness had cut asunder the cords 
which had scourged and bound his people, so that the 
former had not prevailed against them. Scarcely had 
they broken the yoke of Egypt's bondage, ere they were 
brought into subjection to Egypt's idolatries. Their 
shoulders no longer bowed to the taskmaster's burden, 
nor smarted beneath the taskmaster's lash ; but their 
principles were assaulted by his corruptions, and their 
hearts lusted after his flesh-pots. The leaven of Egypt 
lingored long after the rod of Egypt was broken. And if 
the Lord had not been on their side, they would have been 
utterly wasted by the sapping of domestic evils, and the 
onsets of outward foes. But when men rose up against 
them, God stood up with them. When men sought to 
devour them, God interposed to save them. 

We may adopt these words of acknowledgment and 
thanksgiving as affording a proper starting point for a 



brief review of the dangers and deliverances of which our 
domestic history presents a record. We have been envi- 
roned with enemies from the very beginning of our civil 
life. We have been beset within and without by social 
and political antagonisms, which have chafed and fretted 
the web of our civil destiny, and which have been the 
occasion of unceasing anxiety to the patriot sages of our 
land. And the open and dire conflict in which we find 
ourselves engaged to-day, is only the kindling of the dry 
stubble which our essential antagonisms have prepared 
and mingled in our social state. It may help us to a 
clearer conception of the deliverances already wrought for 
us, and tend to give us stronger assurance of the triumph 
which is yet and soon to crown the cause of just govern- 
ment, if we trace in a discursive way the course of our 
political history under the distractions and aberrations 
occasioned by forces foreign to the true political instincts 
of our people. I hope I shall not be regarded as slighting 
the occasion which calls us together to-day, if I invite your 
attention to the Causes and the Issues of our present 
Domestic War. 

It is a very common error among our people to refer 
the causes of our present domestic troubles to the men 
and events of the last and the present generations. The 
theories of this or that statesman, the tendencies of this or 
that scheme of legislation, and the policy of this or that . 
party, and similar phenomena, have been pointed at as 
revealing the sources of our trouble. But all this is most 
unphilosophical and foreign from the matter. The error 
in the premises consists in nothing less than confounding 
phenomena with laws, and putting effects for causes. For 
these things are symptomatic rather than causative, 
pertaining to the incipient stages of the great conflict, 



rather than to the principles which underlie it. Some one 
has said of Luther that he was not the wind that raised the 
storm of the Reformation, but only the wave that was 
carried uppermost by it. And we may, with equal truth, 
say of the theorizers and agitators who have borne part in 
the great national controversy of the time, that, instead of 
being the originators of the tempest which rages around 
us, they are only the waifs borne onward by its breath. 
The real causes of our national disruption and civil war 
lie back of the schemings and plottings of agitators, back 
of the strifes of parties and the measures of administrations. 
We shall comprehend the crisis that is upon us only when 
we come to a truer mastery of the hidden sources from 
whence it springs. 

When Providence had brought the new Empire of the 
Western World to the birth, it was found that there were 
twins struggling for the precedence. Two forms of civili- 
zation at once projected themselves into the sphere of our 
civil life, and began to contend for the mastery. James- 
town and Plymouth represented on these shores the 
antagonistic principles of Cavalier and Roundhead, and 
renewed here the old struggle between chartered Preroga- 
tive and imprescriptible Right, which had raged for centu- 
ries, under various names and guises, in the mother Isle. 
The Cavalier brought with him those ideas of prescription 
and caste which had led him to battle, from the time of 
the Norman conquest, for aristocracy and absolutism. 
The Puritan brought with him those ideas of individual 
freedom and equality, which, though imperfectly compre- 
hended, and more imperfectly applied, at first, contained 
the germs of our Republican life. The former sought to 
build a state in which the many should be only the instru- 
ments of the few. The latter sought to rear a Common- 
wealth in which the few should rule by the will and voice 



ot the many. The one aimed at oligarchic forms, in which 
the personal will of the ruling class should be supreme. 
The other planted communities in which law was greater 
than the magistrate, and loyalty was transferred from the 
person of the ruler to the authority by which he ruled. 
One sought state, power, wealth and luxury for his class. 
The other labored for the public good, and sought the 
general well-being of the community by enforcing the 
claims of well-doing upon all its members. The first was 
chiefly anxious to maintain the privileges of an aristocratic 
order. The second was only intent on setting up free and 
self-ordering communities. The one spread himself over 
the virgin acres of the new territory, that he might swell 
farms into manors, restricting proprietorship while extend- 
ing the area of cultivation. The other enlarged the 
bounds of his habitation that he might increase the num- 
ber of owners of the soil, and diffuse the blessings of 
industry and its rewards among all classes. The one 
brought in the slave-ship to supply his broad lands with 
unpaid laborers. The other set up the school-house that 
his farms might be tilled by intelligent husbandmen. The 
one contented himself with chaining his laborers to the 
soil and compelling them to gather its riches for his use. 
The other yoked the mountain stream to his machinery, 
filled the land with the fruits of his invention and toil, and 
then harnessed the winds of heaven to his ships and com- 
pelled them to bear his productions beyond the seas. The ^ 
one wasted the richest soil on which the sun ever shone, 
and made it desolate and barren. The other converted a 
rocky and barren soil into a fruitful garden. The one 
extended his swa^over vast regions with a comparatively 
small increase of wealth or population. The other 
extended his sway, and wealth sprang from the earth, and 
the waste was peopled by busy and prosperous millions. 



The intercourse of trade, and tlie necessities of the com- 
mon defence, during the French and Indian Wars, 
undoubtedly did much to soften the ancient animosity 
between the CavaHer and the Puritan. But the jealousy 
of an essential antagonism was yet alive at the period of 
the commencement of the Revolutionary strife. This 
antagonism, which became sectional by position, was 
irreconcilable in principle. It revealed itself at almost 
every step in the course of the events which finally ripened 
into the War of Independence. The Southern people were 
slow to enlist in what they stigmatized as a New England 
quarrel. It required all the influence of such men as 
Jefferson and Henry, Carroll and Pinckney, Rutledge and 
Laurens, to induce the Southern Colonies to make com- 
mon cause with the North. It was avowedly to placate 
this jealous interest that John Adams proposed the name 
of George Washington, of Virginia, as the Commander-in- 
Chief of the patriot armies. But in spite of all the con- 
cessions that could be made to this traditional prejudice, 
a large body of the Southern people adhered to the royal 
cause, and became the open enemies of Washington and 
his brethren in arms. It is a significant fact that the 
single State of Massachusetts contributed more men and 
more money to the national cause than all the Southern 
States put together ; while the single State of South Caro- 
lina furnished more Tories than all the States north of 
Mason and Dixon's line. 

The debates in the Convention which framed the 
Federal Constitution are also indicative of the jealousy 
existing between the Southern and Northern sections of 
the country. It was for a long time believed that no 
union closer than a commercial and defensive league 
could be formed, owing to this recognized incompatible- 
ness of interest and feeling. The sentiment of the South 



8 



towards the Northern, and especially towards the New 
England States, was exacting if not arrogant. The Vir- 
ginian, the Georgian, the Carolinian, regarded themselves 
as belonging to a more select race, and the idea of associ- 
ating with an inferior class on terms of political and 
social equality, was repugnant to their pride. They were 
also chafed at the prosperous condition of the Northern 
people. They envied the wealth which the latter were 
acquiring, while they despised the means by which it was 
acquired. They soon persuaded themselves that the 
prosperous enterprise and increasing commerce which 
were enriching our people were somehow at their expense. 
Their statesmen set themselves in various ways to the 
establishment of an equilibrium between the two sections. 
The first high protective tariff imposed by the American 
Congress was a Southern measure, intended to check the 
commercial growth of the Northern and Eastern States. 
It was strenuously opposed by the commercial interest, 
which was chiefly in these States, but without avail. 

But when the policy of high imposts was once estab- 
lished by the National authority, our people submitted, 
and at once adjusted themselves to the new order of 
things. Foreign commerce was somewhat restricted, but 
domestic manufactures were greatly stimulated. And the 
result of this scheme was the building up of that vast 
manufacturing system, which has so multiplied the pro- 
ductive energies and the wealth of our people. Soon as 
it became apparent that the North was more benefited 
by high imposts than they had formerly been by free trade, 
the Southern leaders began to agitate for a repeal of the 
tariff. The chief argument for the repeal, as before it 
had been for the enactment of this tariff, was that the 
North was enriched and the South impoverished. This 
was the question on which Nullification showed its head 



in 1832. But for the energy and patriotism of President 
Jackson, we should have had then the conflict which is 
now upon us. South Carolina was then, as now, the 
leader in opposition to the Government, and she was as 
ready then for rupture and open war as now. But it did 
not suit the design of Providence to allow the old feud of 
caste and race to break out into the flame of war, on an 
issue so narrow as a law regulating impost duties, or on a 
theatre so limited as one insurgent State. Questions of 
more vital interest to the welfare of the race were to be 
brought into this issue, before it could be committed to 
the decision of that Ultima Ratio, the sword. 

The questions involved in the system of African 
slavery have been in debate among us from the begin- 
ning of our national life. At first it was not a debate 
of sections or States, so much as of sociologists and 
moralists, of different schools. Neither its advocates nor 
its impugners belonged to any section. North, South, 
East or West. It could find quite as many apologists 
in Connecticut as in Maryland, and as many opponents in 
Virginia as in Massachusetts. Tlie stipulations relating 
to it in the Federal Constitution, commonly called " the 
Compromises of the Constitution," were compromises 
between fundamental political and moral theories, held 
both at the South and at the North, and the existing 
slave system, rather than compromises between the Norths 
ern and Southern sections. It was a pact between free 
and slave labor, rather than between free and slave States. 
For with a single exception, all the States, whose people 
were parties to the Federal Constitution, were, at the time, 
slave States. And it was then the purpose and belief of 
the best men of all sections, that the system would come 
to a gradual but sure end. This expectation was soon 
realized in the Eastern and Middle States ; a result due in 



10 



part to economic considerations, but more to the quickened 
public conscience, which apprehended the essential wrong 
of the relation. The system was seen to be in conflict with 
the fundamental ideas of our political life, and with the 
laws of natural justice and Christian morality. 

But in the Southern States the system was less repug- 
nant to the social instincts of the people ; though many 
wise and good men did not fail to condemn it, as a wrong 
to the slave and a curse to society. Soon, however, it 
became the source of enormous profit to the planters, and 
grew into a vast class interest. Now it began to be cher- 
ished with the tenacity which interest always inspires. 
Protests against its wrongfulness became less welcome to 
Southern people, and so less frequent. From the general 
admission that slavery is a great evil, they passed to the 
general assertion that it is a great blessing. It came to be 
openly claimed that some men were born not only to 
serve others, but to be owned by them. The relation was 
no longer regarded as an anomaly, but as pertaining to the 
natural order of society. With these views the Northern 
people did not, and could not coincide. But chiefly to 
keep terms with the Southern people, and to enjoy the 
benefits of their trade, no general or effective disclaimer 
was ever put forth. The first appearance of any thing like 
a concerted protest, on the part of the North, was in 
reference to the admission of Missouri into the Union as 
a slave State. The North resisted, but were finally 
worsted in the conflict. From that day slavery became a 
political power, and was, in fact, dominant in the Govern- 
ment. It demanded for successive Presidential incum- 
bents Southern men, or Northern men subservient to 
Southern views and interests. Like a great ulcer, which 
gathers into itself all the other foul humors of the body, 
slavery gradually came to absorb all the other sources of 



11 

animosity cherished by the descendants of the Cavaliers 
against the descendants of the Puritans. Opposition to 
slavery was stigmatized as the old Puritan fanaticism. It 
was claimed for it that it must not only live unquestioned, 
but live wheresoever it would. It must be legalized in all 
the territories of the United States. It must be protected 
in the National Courts of judicature throughout the North. 
Northern citizens must become the captors and persecu- 
tors of fugitives from its bonds. They must cease to 
question its morality, or to discuss the social questions 
involved in it. In short, slavery was put forward as a 
symbol and test of the supremacy of the Southern people 
in the Government. They used it as a means of ruling. 
Long as the Northern people would submit to their dicta- 
tion, they were content to remain with us ; while the least 
show of independence would at once bring the threat of 
disunion. The alternative which they have presented to 
us, for the last generation, has been, subjection or separa- 
tion : if not one relation, then the other. And the war 
which is upon us to-day is simply the effort of these 
would-be-masters to divide the country which they could 
no longer rule — to subvert the Government which they 
could no longer control. It was not the question of 
slavery or no slavery which incited the Southern revolt 
against the Government. Neither the Northern people, 
nor any considerable portion of them, have ever presented 
such an issue. The Southern leaders knew that they 
could enjoy slavery where they had planted it, and that 
they could extend it at will, limited only by their power 
of propagation. Slavery has been the pretext rather than 
the cause of separation. It was chosen simply because it 
was a more effective wedge than the tariff, or the sub- 
treasury. It was more involved in Southern interest and 
prejudice, on the one hand, and more repugnant to the 



12 

Northern conscience, on the other. But nothing that you 
could have done for slavery would have prevented the 
rupture : nothing that you can do in this line will heal it. 
The oracles of the rebellion have over and over again 
declared that they would themselves destroy every vestige 
of slavery, if such a measure should become necessary, to 
effect their final separation from the Northern people. 
They despise us as a base and ignoble rabble. They hate 
us as thwarting their will and obstructing their power. 
This contempt and hate have been working for years ; and 
they have at last broken forth in the awful flame of war. 
They were carefully fanned by every consideration that 
could excite a fiery and impetuous race. Loose theories 
of government have been inculcated and kept before the 
people. The sovereignty of the State has been magnified, 
and that of the Nation eclipsed. It was insisted that the 
State was to be obeyed, whatever it might require. Thus 
the very foundations of authority were undermined, and 
a whole people were prepared for revolt and civil war. 

I by no means intend to belittle the agency of slavery 
in bringing upon us the present crisis. It must be held 
as an evidence of the utter viciousness of the system, that 
it has fostered the arrogance, and nursed the prejudice, 
and entailed the ignorance which have worked together 
for our national undoing. It has hastened the crisis. It 
has given unity to our enemies. It has furnished them 
the means of subsistence. It has been set forth as the 
pretext for war against the government and people. But 
he sadly mistakes the temper of the leaders of Southern 
opinion, and the whole tendency of Southern civihzation, 
who thinks there would have been no rupture if there 
had been no slavery. It might not have been during this 
generation, or the next, but sooner or later it would have 
burst forth. The aristocratic and democratic elements in 



13 

this government were destined, in the course of events, to 
come into open conflict. 

Nor is the conflict likely to be confined to the South. 
We have men among us who think that democratic insti- 
tutions are a failure. They look with undisguised satis- 
faction on the different order of things which the Southern 
leaders have set ovit to inaugurate. You. may see this 
tendency alien to liberty in the liveries and armorial 
bearings daily sported in our large cities and fashionable 
watering places. You may see it in the effort of a late 
President of the United States to have his name printed 
among reigning princes of the earth. You may see it in 
the open sympathy shown for the rebel leaders. You may 
hear it in the assertion that the rebellion cannot be put 
down by arms. It crops out in the proposal to amend the 
Constitution and change the basis of Government, in a 
way that will make it less favorable to freedom, and more 
acceptable to slave masters. There is a conspiracy to-day 
in the North for the betrayal of the Government, and for 
the denial of the people's interest in its provisions. Here, 
as in the South, the party of revolution consists of a few 
cultivated and scheming aristocrats, and an ignorant 
rabble, who scarcely know their right hand from their left. 
The Philistines be upon us, and among us. And unless 
we are swift and strong to check these sinister tendencies, 
the true character of this war, as a social, rather than a 
civil war, will be revealed in the blood which will flow 
upon our own hearth-stones. The riots which have 
recently raged in several of our cities were no hasty and 
fortuitous outbursts of passion, but the carefully prepared 
results of measures which have been pursued by certain 
persons and presses for months past. The men who pre- 
tend to stand by the Government, and yet make systematic 
war on the Administration ; the men who insist that pro- 



14 



cesses intended for a time of peace, and suited only to a 
time of peace, shall be scrupulously observed in a time of 
civil war, that the ship shall be worked in the storm just 
as it was worked in the calm, that you shall fight rebellion 
with the paper pellets of the courts instead of the sum- 
mary processes of military law ; the men who make a 
louder outcry against the occasional mistakes of govern- 
ment officials, than against organized, armed and bloody 
rebeUion ; the men who hurl their anathemas at the head 
of the " tyrant Lincoln," and yet have no words of con- 
demnation for the rebel Davis ; the men who under the 
specious claim of the freedom of speech and of the press, 
preach and print treason, and incite the ignorant to resist- 
ance against the Government ; the men who deliberately 
proclaim their purpose to resist the Government unto 
blood, if it shall undertake to restrain their adverse speech 
and action ; the men who openly pronounce for immediate 
peace with traitors, when the only basis of peace is sub- 
mission to tliem or separation from them ; these men are 
enemies to the Government, and enemies to the social 
order which it estabUshes, guards and defends. They are 
in league with traitors for the overthrow of the best gov- 
ernment on which the sun shines. I care not what party 
name they take, I care not what rights they pretend to 
guard, or what public policy they ostensibly pursue, their 
work, and the fruit of their work, is simple, bald, skulking 
treason. " Their throat is an open sepulchre ; with their 
tongues they have used deceit ; the poison of asps is under 
their lips : their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. 
Their feet are swift to shed blood : destruction and misery 
are in their ways." 

I have dwelt at such length on the causes of the war, 
because it seemed necessary in order to disclose the true 



15 



issues of the conflict and the duty of the hour. These 
points must be disposed of in a summary way, and your 
patience shall be relieved. 

The issue presented for solemn adjudication to-day, is 
not whether we shall conduct this war without any refer- 
ence to slavery. You might as well claim that powder 
and cannon shall have nothing to do in the settlement of 
our conclusions. Slavery is in the war, put in by the 
deliberate act of its friends. Its claims are to be adjudi- 
cated. It has been put into such relations to this contro- 
versy that you cannot strike a blow or fire a shot without 
hitting it. The establisliment of the Government must 
be its overthrow. The subversion of the Government will 
be its triumph. You have got slavery in hand, and you 
must settle it as you settle the war. 

Nor is the issue presented to-day whether we shall ^ake 
concessions to slavery or have protracted war. No con- 
cession you can make in the interest of slavery will avail 
to check this strife. You may decree to-morrow that 
slavery shall be the law of the land from Maine to Cali- 
fornia, and from the Northern Lakes to the Mexican Gulf, 
and you will be no nearer peace than you were before. 
There is only one concession that will satisfy our enemies. 
Concede the nationality and independence of their self- 
styled Confederacy, consent that they shall hold the forts 
and arsenals they have usurped, yield the territory they 
have divided from your magnificent domain, allow that 
your Constitution is a rope of sand, and that your Govern- 
ment is at the mercy of the popular will, — concede these 
things, and you may have peace till it shall please your 
enemies to make some new demand upon you. And 
depend upon it, if you are weak and base enough to make 
such a concession as this, the new demand will not long 
be wanting. 



16 



The first great issue to be settled by this war is whetlier 
we have a Central Government of the peoi^le, or only a 
loose league of States. Our fathers meant to form a 
General Government, supreme, stable and enduring. 
They set it up, not in the name of the States, but in the 
name and by the authority of the people. " We, the 
People of the United States,"— such is the official desig- 
nation of the parties to the great covenant of our Union. 
The Union of the States was grounded on the Unity of 
the people. The States did not formally appear, either in 
the formation or ratification of the Constitution. It was 
desirable, indeed, that their organic life should be recog- 
nized somewhere in the Government ; hence the plan of 
State representation in the National Senate, this body 
being composed of representatives of the States, while the 
House of Representatives represents the People. The 
Union was intended not as a Union of the States, but as 
a Union of the People. It was meant that the Govern- 
ment should be supreme. All questions relating to the 
currency, all regulations affecting commerce, all postal 
arrangements, all treaties with foreign powers, all deci- 
sions of peace and war, and all matters of controversy 
between the respective States, were expressly committed 
to this central power. In fact the national authority 
extends to every department of the public life. With the 
exception of local and municipal affairs, the power of the 
Government touches every part of the political system. 

Yet the theory has been set up that the Constitution is 
only a league between the States, and that the Union is 
simply a loose confederation of organized communities. 
It is claimed that the State has only to retract the consent 
by which it bound itself to the Union, and it goes out with 
all its original rights ; carrying with it, moreover, all forts, 
arsenals, custom houses, post offices and post roads, which 



17 

the General Government may have established within its 
bounds. This is the theory which has been adopted by 
the seceded States, in pursuance of which they have 
assumed to carry themselves out of the Union. This 
theory is also accepted by portions of the Northern people. 
Mr. Buchanan refused to take any decided measures for 
the suppression of the present rebellion, on the plea that 
the General Government has no power to coerce a State. 
The cry that has been recently raised against the assumed 
encroachments of the General Government on the rights 
of the States, is simply a part of the plan for the disinte- 
gration of the Federal power. The oration delivered 
before the civic authorities of Boston, on the Fourth of 
July, 1862, set up a theory of State prerogative which 
involves the whole principle of secession. And the orator 
of that day is understood now to be a leading member of 
an association in the city of New York, whose avowed 
object is the dissemination of this theory, alien to the 
public life of the nation. These gentlemen deny the 
power of the General Government to raise an army by 
conscription in the States. They claim to restrict the 
war powers of the President by State laws. They seek to 
interpose the' State authorities between the people and the 
Federal power. Their leading organ openly teaches that 
the President can act in the States, (excepting only the 
custom houses, forts and arsenals within their limits,) 
only in subservience to the Governors of the States. The 
Governor, it declares, is the commander-in-chief of the 
militia of the State, ignoring the constitutional provision 
that the President shall be recognized as the commander- 
in-chifef of the Governor. 

If this theory be generally accepted, it will follow that 
this war is a guilty and bloody piece of aggression on the 
part of the Federal Government. It will follow, also, that 



18 

there is not enough substance in the Government to make 
it worth fighting for. If the Central Government be thus 
at the mercy of the States, it is not worth the parchment 
on which its charter is written. And the solemn question 
which you are trying to-day is whether your National 
Government is Sovereign or Subject — whether it is 
supreme in the sphere of its ordination, or whether it is 
dependent on the caprices of the people or the authorities 
of the States. This is the issue which you are to try 
faithfully and well between the Government and the men 
who have lifted up the standard of revolt. If you yield 
this point to your enemies, not only the supremacy, but 
the very existence of the Government is at an end. 

On this point the history of confederated governments is 
full of instruction and warning. The celebrated League 
of Lombardy, which was powerful enough in the latter 
part of the twelfth century to resist and overthrow the vast 
military power of Frederic Barbarossa, one of the greatest 
and most enterprising of the German Emperors, came to a 
speedy and ignominious end. In less than a century from 
the Treaty of Constance, by which its independence was 
confirmed, this powerful League melted out of the political 
map of the world. The bond of union between its mem- 
bers was unequal, as a union of states, some larger and 
more populous than the rest, must of necessity be. The 
larger states not only exercised an overshadowing control 
in public affairs, but they oppressed the weaker ones. 
When questions arose between the states, the Central 
Government had no power to adjust them. It had no 
common head, no supreme appellate power for the adjudi- 
cation of mutual differences. When the policy of any^state 
came into conflict with the claims of the League the latter 
were disregarded, unless the enmity or jealousy of other 
states cooperated with the confederate authority. In short, 



19 



this League was substantially what the seceded States and 
their sympathizers would make our Government — a loose 
agglomeration of States, which must fall to pieces from the 
clashings of interest, or from the shocks of faction. If you 
fail to carry the authority of your Government into the 
States which have been temporarily wrested from its sway ; 
if you fail to reestablish its beneficent authority over the 
people of those States, your end will be like unto theirs, 
and a long night of anarchy and oppression shall be the 
inheritance of your children. The question which we have 
submitted to the ordeal of battle is whether our Govern- 
ment shall be stable or ephemeral — whether it shall mould 
the future or be buried in the past. Let the solemn adjudi- 
cation of the people's interest in the blessings of good and 
stable government go on. Let no one consent to a stay 
or arrest of proceedings till the verdict of history shall be 
pronounced, and the authority of the Nation shall be fully 
and forever vindicated. 

There is one other great issue being tried and settled by 
the war which we are waging, namely: Whether our 
Government be grounded simply in motives of commercial 
interest and political power, or whether it contemplates 
the essential rights and interests of humanity. Here, too, 
it becomes us to read and ponder well the teachings of his- 
tory. A case in point is furnished by the German Hansa, 
commonly called the Hanseatic League. This confedera- 
tion was structurally much more perfect than the League 
which wrested independence from the iron hand of Frederic 
Barbarossa. Its legislative functions were confided to a 
general diet, the members of which were chosen in a given 
ratio ])y the several cities. The authority of this diet 
extended to all matters of public well-being. Its constitu- 
tion seems to have secured unity and effectiveness in the 



20 



public administration. The government appears to have 
been marked by equal prudence and force. It included 
eighty-five free cities, and reached a pitch of power which 
no maritime nation, not even Tyre, had before attained. 

But this League was marked by an inherent and fatal 
defect. It rested solely on views of commercial advantage, 
instead of those interests of society which are fundamental 
and permanent. It aimed not at the freedom, intelligence 
and advancement of the people, but merely at the increase 
of trade and the accumulation of material wealth. Hence 
when these interests began to wane, and the channels of 
commerce were turned in other directions, this great 
League began to crumble away. This result sprung from 
the very nature of things. A confederation simply for 
purposes of gain, or any other material or transient 
advantage, will reach its limit and surely come to an end. 
Like a business partnership, it will determine when its 
object is accomplished, or when it ceases to be profitable. 
No community will permanently hold together on a basis 
so narrow and sordid. Unless it be bound up in the sub- 
stantial interests of mankind, and respect the imperishable ' 
rights of our common nature, it will decay. A union 
which has no higher aim than to secure material benefits, 
to foster commerce, to promote manufactures, and to 
aggrandize political power ; a union of trading guilds for 
the purposes of traffic and barter ; a union which is blind 
to wrongs and regardless of rights ; a union which does not 
enfold and enshrine the progress and the hopes of human- 
ity, is only a temporary thing, an expedient of a day, and 
not the glory and joy of all time. Only those compacts 
which respect that essential justice which guards the rights 
and liberties of mankind ; which spread their shield before 
the rich and the poor, the defenceless and the strong alike, 
so grounding themselves on what is permanent and pro- 



21 



gressive in the social and political life of the race, — only 
such compacts have the elements of an enduring vitality 
in them. And such a union will live. It may be visited 
by storms ; faction may assail it ; the floods of the people 
may lift themselves against it ; but the storm shall cease, 
the flood shall subside, and that sacred ark of humanity 
shall remain, resting securely on a basis more enduring 
than the everlasting hills. 

It is the glory of our National Constitution that it bases 
itself on the sacred rights of human nature. It recognizes 
the divine foreordination of freedom for all men. Chief 
among its objects vt^as to promote the general welfare, and 
to secure the blessings of freedom to posterity. And 
though it has been perverted and thwarted by men whose 
aims were alien to its spirit, it has at last been wrested 
from their hands, and freedom is now proclaimed under 
the broad shield of its authority, throughout all the land, 
to all the inhabitants thereof. Hitherto its exceptions 
have been exalted above its leading design. Its temporary 
provisions have been set in opposition to its fundamental 
principles. But at length the exceptional wrong has given 
place to the essential right. If the people have only the 
virtue and firmness to stand upon its noble aims, and the 
public policy just inaugurated in pursuance of them, the 
clouds will soon clear away, and a new day of freedom and 
prosperity will dawn on the land. The Constitution shall 
at last be recognized as the bond, while the Flag shall be 
the symbol, of Universal Freedom. And out of this chaos 
of blood and strife a new order of equality and justice shall 
emerge, and the rejoicings of the free shall be like the song 
of the sons of the morning in the dawn of creation. 

We must not tliink, however, that the present conflict is 
to end in the total displacement of one or the other form 



22 



of the prevalent civilizations, or in the complete triumph 
of either. It were better that the dross of both should be 
burned away in the " divine white heat " of national trial, 
and the good that is in each should be fused and welded 
by the furnace and anvil of God's Providence to a nobler 
substance and firmer strength. Like the amalgam known 
as Corinthian Brass, the toughest of metals, which was 
first revealed through a providential conflagration, the 
true American civilization, the type and end of all civili- 
zations, is to be the product of this fiery trial which has 
been kindled upon us. There are qualities in the Southern 
character which are necessary to the fulness and perfection 
of our social life. There are qualities in the Northern 
character which need to be refined away, or to be modified 
by complemental elements in the Southern temper. 
Where we are close, they are open. Where we are crafty, 
they are simple. Where we are narrow in our feelmgs, 
they are broader and more generous. Where we are 
steady, they are impulsive. Where we are provident, 
they are prodigal. Where we are enterprising, they are 
thriftless. Where they are full in their social develop- 
ment, we are restricted and isolated. With them culture 
is broader and more refined ; with us, if less thorough, it 
is more' widely diffused. We have juster notions of 
personal rights, while they have higher views of personal 
dignity. With us the voice of conscience is more clear 
^and potent ; with them the sense of honor is more quick 
and vital. We furnish the complemental parts of each 
other's character. God meant us for each other, as he 
meant the diamond for the working of the diamond. The 
currents of His Providence are grinding us upon each 
other, as stones are worn smooth by the flow of the stream. 
He is using us to wipe out the stain of their oppression. 
He is using them to lift us out of the ruts of our sordid 



23 



love of gain. We may fail to subdue them by arms ; they 
may not hurry us into a base and unworthy peace. But 
we shall mutually assimilate to each other in a renovated 
form of character, when through the strenuousness of the 
strife they have forced upon us, we shall come to glow and 
shine in the predestined nobleness of our national life. 
Then the old vision of prophecy shall be fulfilled, and the 
lion and the lamb shall lie down together. Then shall the 
land enter into the blessedness of an enduring Sabbath. 
Then shall our officers be peace, and our exactors right- 
eousness. Then shall our wide and glorious domain smile 
under the hand of enlightened industry, while the laborer 
shall rejoice in its rewards. And the hum of our multi- 
plied activities shall blend with the voice of our people on 
the land and on the sea, in strains of thanksgiving to the 
all-planning and invincible Worker, for Freedom Realized, 
Prosperity Augmented, and Faith Yictorious. 



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